Yannick: Raphaël Quenard’s one-man show (review)
The hero of Junkyard Dog, confirms that 2023 is his year without removing all the frustrations inherent in the cinema of Quentin Dupieux, for several films.
Approaching the Caesars Ceremony 2024which will be followed on Friday evening live and unencrypted on Canal Plus, the channel is broadcasting this Tuesday evening for the first time Yannick, at 9:11 p.m. If Quentin Dupieux’s film (also already available on MyCanal) was not completely packed First, Raphaël Quenard’s performance, which earned him a nomination for the César for best actor, totally convinced us. Our review:
It was by directing him in his previous feature film Smoking makes you coughthe time for a face to face with Blanche Gardin, that Quentin Dupieux had the idea and the desire to write for Raphaël Quenard a tailor-made film. A long-kept secret project, shot in 6 days, and whose existence we learned of just a few weeks before its theatrical release. The story of a spectator of a boulevard play, The Cuckold, who, no longer able to bear what he is seeing, decides to get up, call out to the actors and interrupt the show to take matters into his own hands. Inspired by the actor’s unparalleled ability, Dupieux signs here his most dialogue-heavy film in ages and has the good idea of leaving him the keys to the truck.
Put in the spotlight thanks to the brilliant Dog of the breakage but just as impressive just before or since, in I will always see your faces, Cash And On the branch, Quenard lives up to the gift that was given to him. Both in the monologue and in the exchanges with his partners (Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin, Sébastien Chassagne, the performers of the piece, all impeccable), generosity dominates his interpretation rich in subtle nuances both in pure comedy and in a more serious register. emotional.
The scribbled poster of Yannick gives a clue: that of a wink to that of Too beautiful for you by Bertrand Blier. And the shadow of the filmmaker – of whom Dupieux has always presented himself as a fervent admirer, more precisely of his Cold buffet – hovers over this Yannickundoubtedly the most convincing of Dupieux’s films since At office ! in 2018. And yet when we loved his first features so much, Steak And Rubber, and that we have suffered for years seeing him rest on his laurels in films with always brilliant ideas, always very strong casting, but always so frustrating in their execution, this Yannick is not enough to turn the situation around. Because the same causes, the same effects.
Why choose such an easy target as the boulevard theater as a playground? What does he really want to say behind this umpteenth clash between proletarians and bourgeois? What uniqueness does he bring to it? Why once again, after a controlled set-up, does he himself seem to be looking for how he is going to be able to fit all this into a feature film format and even more so how to conclude, if not with a pirouette? And, having reached the end of its 69 minutes, we must admit our inability to provide an answer to all these questions. If only at the bottom Yannick has no other goal than to make people laugh and that we undoubtedly project too much on Quentin Dupieux and his cinema each time.
By Quentin Dupieux. With Raphaël Quenard, Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin… Duration 1h09 Released August 2, 2023
